Child of the Sky: A Home for a Wanderer
by AmayaZilla
Summary: In this prequel to "Tales of the Wanderer That Wasn't" we learn about Katherine's childhood among the elves and an evil power that has haunted her since birth. The werecats are moving secretly in the shadows and a childhood friend might know more than he's telling. What dark secrets lie underground and what do they want with the halfling child?
1. Prologue

**Summary: **In this prequel to "Tales of the Wanderer That Wasn't" we learn about Katherine's childhood among the elves and an evil power that has haunted her since birth. The werecats are moving secretly in the shadows and a childhood friend might know more than he's telling. What dark secrets lie underground and what do they want with the halfling child?

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**Prologue**

_War was being waged across the land, a mighty war that would change the very fate of the world, but the power of the war also awoke a very deep being._

_Deep under the ground a gem was buried, a gem from the ancient times when wild dragons roamed free across the land above. It was no ordinary gem though, it was a very large __Eldunarí that whose inhabitant had been banished underground long before anyone of the other races even came to Alagaësia._

_The other underground dwelling races avoided the cursed chamber that housed it, afraid of the power that the sleeping dragon embodied._

_But now that power that had been sealed underground for centuries was awakening and finding its way back to the upper world. For now the power was merely seeking, light tendrils of thought brushing against anything it came in contact with._

_It desired something…something that could free it from the ancient curse that trapped it underground._

_Meanwhile on the surface, dragons soared overhead as a lone elf broke away from her kind, slipping nearly unnoticed into the nearby ranks of werecats. Likewise a tall, shaggy werecat approached her in his human form._

_One person noticed their strange exchange though, a silvered werecat that was old beyond age. She watched with nervous energy but did nothing to stop it, it was inevitable._

_This strange meeting took place only moments before the fall of Galbatorix and his cursed black dragon._

_Then the tyrant king fell and Eragon took the last of the dragons and everything associated with them to a far off land to train the new Riders._

_Everything gradually returned to peace but only a year after this a strange thing happened. The elf maid and the tall werecat had a child, a cursed child some called her._

_The elf maiden, Mistil her friends called her, died in childbirth; she had slipped into the forest to have the child in secret, trusting her power to keep herself and the child alive. Something strange happened though and she died in her forest hut with the child in her arms._

_The elves discovered her soon after and could find no explanation for her death; the only thing they knew was that the air around the hut felt wrong, as though some dark power had suddenly settled there._

_The child's father, the werecat known only as Rawon, was slain a few days later in the dwarf tunnels between Surda and the mountains. His last words were that the child should be called Amaya Waneta before he went into the tunnels._

_A problem existed now between the elves and the werecats, with no parents who would raise the halfling? The werecats argued long and hard, the strange sounds heard throughout the land until finally they reached an agreement._

_As the child's mother was an elf, she should be raised by the elves and they left her with Queen Arya in the elf kingdom._

_The elves named her Katherine Aleron because the werecats had given her no name, keeping her father's last wish a secret between themselves and the child._

_In appearance she grew mostly elf, if slightly short at four and a half feet, with sharp slanting blue eyes and pointed, if cat-like, ears but her tail was visible even in humanoid form. She was more cat-like than any elf before her and had claws and sharp teeth like the werecats as well as the ability to take on her cat shape, which was larger than other werecats and a light tawny-silver shade with dark brown tufts that matched her hair._

_The elves, fearing the power they had felt around her birthplace and unsure what to do with the halfling, left her in the care of a young elf that lived on the outskirts of Ellesméra._

_The halfling became the elves' secret child; the only ones outside the forest that even knew of her existence were the werecats and Eragon._


	2. Chapter 1: Blood Feathers

**Chapter 1: Blood Feathers**

Arrachon was a young elf and he had always been interested in the other races of Alagaësia, but even he couldn't figure out why the queen had charged him with raising the halfling.

She was a difficult child to raise and yet she learned quickly, more quickly than any child the elves had ever seen. Despite her knowledge few things interested her and the things that did were never simple.

She was nine now and he had risked leaving her alone for the day while he studied. This had turned out to be a mistake though because only an hour after leaving he was summoned back by a complaint of loud noises.

The noise was quieter now but he was careful as he slipped through the trees towards the clearing where they lived together. The clearing looked undisturbed, almost surreal in the noon-day sun, but a scent in the air told otherwise.

The shadowy edges of the clearing hid patches of blood, the dark liquid beginning to hardened already. A trail of blood led up the largest tree across the clearing, the shadowy upper leaves hiding the halfling.

Bright blue eyes flashed as he stepped closer, amber appearing at the edges. Amber was always a bad sign, a warning of her wild nature.

Arrachon slowed as he got closer, not daring to touch her mind in this state. "Come down Kathy, did you hurt yourself while I was away?"

A hiss greeted his words and then an angry retort, the ancient language coming easily to the young child. "Go away! Leave me alone!"

The power behind the words held no threat, though Arrachon was careful to take a step back anyway, they had had arguments of this nature for years now. "Kathy" he repeated, gentler now as he sat down where he could watch her.

They remained watching each other for several minutes as the amber faded from her eyes, gradually darkening to their usual blue. Finally she moved, slinking along the branch until she dropped to the ground beside him.

Arrachon carefully stood up and examined her, wincing at the damage she had done. Two black feathered wings now sprouted from her back but their form off and they were incapable of flight.

She shivered under his touch, the new wing muscles not obeying her attempts to spread them.

"I would you do this?" he finally asked, dusting loose feathers to the ground as he slowly sealed the wounds to her back and wings.

She shifted her gaze to the sky, saying nothing for a moment. When she did finally speak the words were barely a whisper "I want to fly, the ground…"

He didn't press her further, instead weaving his own magic to finish the job. She had always had a strange fear of the ground, spending most of her time in the treetops away from it.

The wings flailed under his touch now, gaining strength as he corrected her misjudgments. When he was done he sat back down in the grass and watched her again "I can't teach you to use them but they should serve for you now."

She tentatively tested the wings, stretching and folding them to their limits, then sat down in front of him. "Thank you Array, I um…" her claws kneaded the ground in front of her as she ducked her head.

He smiled, glad she had settled down now, and shook his head. "I've told you before to be careful, magic isn't something you can use wildly. We're family aren't we?"

She nodded, a faint smile appearing as she relaxed, "Always and only."


End file.
